Welcome to my blog---an eyes-open, no-holds-barred exploration of Western and Eastern spirituality, mindfulness, philosophy and literature. A member of the Australian and New Zealand Mental Health Association, I lectured at the NSW Institute of Psychiatry to mental health workers for 14 years and at the University of Technology, Sydney to law students for 16 years. My interests include metaphysics, the psychology of religion, transformative ritual, mythology and addiction recovery.

Sunday, January 29, 2017

Those words –
meditation is not what you think – were written on a bookmark I once received
when I purchased a book from a metaphysical bookshop.

For some time –
I must be slow or dim-witted – I pondered what those words meant. They seemed
to be saying to me that meditation was something different from what I thought
it was. Well, that was certainly true, for I was to learn that meditation was
indeed something very different from what for many years was my limited understanding
of the practice. Then, one day, it dawned on me what was the real ‘meaning’ of
the phrase. Meditation is not what you think.
Meditation is not about thinking. Meditation is not thinking at all. Meditation
is something other than thinking.

What, then, is
meditation? Well, meditation is many things such as waiting, listening, sitting
in silence, observing, being attentive, being aware – that is, choicelessly aware – of the content of the
action of our mind as well as the action of our surrounds.

Now, when we
think about the activity of our mind – in particular, our conscious mind – we come
to be aware of, and observe, what J. Krishnamurti (pictured) referred to as ‘the
activity of the self’. Actually, there is more than one self in our mind. There
is, for example, the ‘self that is judgmental’, the ‘self that hates immigrants and refugees’,
the ‘self that loves pleasure’, and so on. Each of our innumerable likes,
dislikes, views, opinions, beliefs, attachments and aversions is a ‘self’ of
sorts. They are all our little ‘I’s’ and ‘me’s’ – and there are literally hundreds, even thousands, of
them. The combined activity of these ‘selves’, none of which is the true person
each of us is, is known as the ‘activity of the self’. This activity causes us
no end of trouble. What sort of trouble? Self-obsession, self-centredness,
self-absorption as well as addictions, obsessions and compulsions of various kinds.
The activity of the self results in all manner of thoughts, words and deeds
that are selfish

This is what
Krishnamurti has to say about the activity of the self and meditation (This Light in Oneself,Seventh
Public Talk in Saanen, July 1973):

Where there is the activity of the
self, meditation is not possible. This is very important to understand, not
verbally but actually. Meditation is a process of emptying the mind of all the
activity of the self, of all the activity of the ‘me.’ If you do not understand
the activity of the self, then your meditation only leads to illusion, your
meditation then only leads to self-deception, your meditation then will only
lead to further distortion. So to understand what mediation is, you must understand
the activity of the self. …

Meditation can assist a person to become free from the bondage to self –
free from the activity of the self. The ‘secret’ is to sit quietly and watch,
non-judgmentally, the activity of the self. In the words of Krishnamurti (The First and Last Freedom, Chapter 19 (‘Self-Centred
Activity’)):

If you watch
yourself and are aware of this centre of activity, you will see that it is only
the process of time, of memory, of experiencing and translating every
experience according to memory; you also see that self-activity is recognition,
which is the process of the mind. … Is it possible for the mind ever to be free
from self-centred activity? That is a very important question first to put to
ourselves, because in the very putting of it, you will find the answer. That
is, if you are aware of the total process of this self-centred activity, fully
cognizant of its activities at different levels of your consciousness, then
surely you have to ask yourselves if it is possible for that activity to come
to an end - that is, not to think in terms of time, not to think in terms of
what I will be, what I have been, what I am. From such thought, the whole
process of self centred activity begins; there also begin the determination to
become, the determination to choose and to avoid, which are all a process of
time. We see, in that process, infinite mischief, misery, confusion,
distortion, deterioration taking place. Be aware of it as I am talking, in your
relationship, in your mind.

In his many talks and writings Krishnamurti would
often talk about the futility of self-forgetfulness, pointing out that there is
no means of forgetting
the self. In his Commentaries on Living, Series I, Chapter 41 ('Awareness')), we read:

Problems will
always exist where the activities of the self are dominant. To be aware which
are and which are not the activities of the self needs constant vigilance. This
vigilance is not disciplined attention, but an extensive awareness which is
choiceless. Disciplined attention gives strength to the self; it becomes a
substitute and a dependence. Awareness, on the other hand, is not self-induced,
nor is it the outcome of practice; it is understanding the whole content of the
problem, the hidden as well as the superficial.

‘Problems
will always exist when the activities of the self are dominant.’ How true that
is! It is especially true of the addict – and we are all addicts of one kind or another. Not all of us are addicted to
alcohol or other drugs but each one of us is addicted to certain ways of
thinking, feeling and acting. We are addicted to our own views, opinions and
beliefs, our own likes and dislikes. Meditation, practised as choiceless awareness, helps us to
disengage, to dis-identify, from the objects of our addictions. When we observe
– non-judgmentally – the activity of
the self diminishes and reduces in intensity. In the words of Krishnamurti, we
come to understand ‘the whole content of the problem, the hidden as well as the
superficial’.

Meditation
is not what you think. Meditation is
not thought or words. Learn to empty your mind of the activity of the self.
Refuse to identify with it. You are not those false selves that cause you so
much grief and angst. You are a person
among persons. A person caught up in
the activity of the self is never free. He or she is in perpetual bondage to
self. However, it need not be so. Meditate. Practise emptying your mind of the
activity of the self. Let it go. Don’t hold onto it. Then, and only then, will
you be free.

An old queen sits sewing at an
open window during a winter snowfall. She pricks her finger with her needle. Three
drops of blood fall onto the snow on the ebony window frame. The queen admires
the beauty of the red on white. ‘Oh, how I wish that I had a daughter that is
as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as that wood of the
window frame,’ she says to herself. Shortly thereafter, the queen indeed gives
birth to a baby girl as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and with hair as
black as ebony. Snow White is her name. Then the old queen dies. A new era begins.

A year later, the king marries
again. His new wife—the new queen—is beautiful but also wicked and terribly vain.
As in other fairy tales such as Cinderella
and Hansel and Gretel we have the
familiar appearance of an evil stepmother. It makes you wonder if there are any
nice stepmothers out there! Of course, there are plenty of them—nice ones, that
is—but never, it seems, in fairy tales. The new queen has a magic mirror. Every
morning she turns to the mirror and asks, ‘Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s
the fairest in the land?’ The mirror always replies, ‘You, my Queen, are the
fairest in the land.’ This new queen is very much involved with herself.
Indeed, she is in total bondage to herself. Far too many of us are like her. It’s
a terrible predicament to be in, for there is no joy being in bondage to self.

Time passes. Snow White is now
aged seven. She is very beautiful and much more beautiful than her stepmother,
the new queen. So, when the stepmother queen asks her magic mirror, it responds,
‘My Queen, you are the fairest here so true. But Snow White is a thousand times
more beautiful than you.’ This comes as a great shock to the queen, to put it
mildly. Funny, isn’t it? We only like to hear what we want to hear. The stepmother queen becomes yellow and then green
with envy. Her heart turns against Snow White. Indeed, with every following day
she hates Snow White more and more. So, the stepmother queen orders a huntsman
to take Snow White into the deepest woods and kill her. She orders the huntsman
to return with Snow White’s lungs and liver. That way, she will know for sure
that Snow White is finally dead. The huntsman takes Snow White into the forest but
is unable to kill her. He leaves her behind alive. ‘She will be eaten by some
wild animal,’ he says to himself. Instead, he brings the stepmother queen the
lungs and liver of a young boar, which is prepared by the cook and eaten by the
queen. (This is an unsuccessful attempt on the queen’s part to relieve herself
of her bondage to self.

Snow White wanders through
the forest for some time. Eventually, she discovers a tiny cottage which belongs
to a group of seven dwarfs. (In sacred numerology—that is, in myths, fairy tales,
sacred literature and so on—the number ‘seven’ represents such things as fullness, individual completeness (the number ‘twelve’ representing corporate
completeness), the perfection of the human soul and grace. It is
considered to be the divine number and thus the most spiritual of all numbers.
Read the Bible and the sacred texts and you will see that I am right on that.

No one is at home in the dwarfs’
cottage. So, Snow White decides to eat something, drink some wine and then test
all the beds. Finally, the last bed is comfortable enough for her and she falls
asleep. In due course, the seven dwarfs return home and discover Snow White asleep. (Life is very much trial and error. We experiment and we
experience.) The dwarfs come home and find Show White there. She wakes up and
explains to them what happened. The dwarfs take pity on her, saying: ‘If you
will keep house for us, and cook, make beds, wash, sew, and knit, and keep
everything clean and orderly, then you can stay with us, and you shall have
everything that you want.’ (A bit old-fashioned, that. Where are the
feminists?) The dwarfs warn Snow White to be careful when alone at home and not
to let anyone in when they are away in the mountains during the day.

Meanwhile, the stepmother queen
asks her mirror once again: ‘Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest in
the land?’ The mirror replies, ‘My Queen, you are the fairest here so true. But
Snow White beyond the mountains at the seven dwarfs is a thousand times more
beautiful than you.’ The queen is livid. She realises she was betrayed by the
huntsman. Worse still, Snow White is still alive. All the stepmother queen can
think of is how to get rid of Snow White. So, she disguises herself as an old
peddler, walks to the cottage of the dwarfs, and offers Snow White colourful,
silky laced bodices. She convinces Snow White to take the most beautiful bodice
as a present, then she laces it so tight that Snow White faints. The queen
leaves her for dead. However, the dwarfs return just in time and Snow White
revives when the dwarfs loosen the laces.

Next morning, the stepmother queen
consults her mirror again. Shock, horror! She is told that Snow White is still
alive. The queen is incensed. She is aflame with rage and hatred. She decides
to dress up as a comb seller and pays Snow White a visit. She manages to
convince Snow White to take a pretty comb as a present and proceeds to brush
Snow White's hair with the comb. Unfortunately, the comb is poisoned. Snow
White faints again but is revived by the dwarfs. The next morning the mirror
tells the queen that Snow White is still 'a thousand times more beautiful' than
the queen. The queen is now apoplectic with rage. She makes a poisoned apple and,
in the disguise of a farmer's wife, she offers it to Snow White, who is at
first hesitant to accept it, so the queen cuts the apple in half, eats the
white harmless part, and gives the red poisoned part to Snow White. (I am a bit
like Snow White. I can resist anything except temptation.) Snow White takes a
bite of the apple—the poisoned part—and falls into a state of suspended
animation. This time the dwarfs are unable to revive the girl because they
can't find the source of Snow White's poor health and, assuming that she is
dead, they place her in a glass coffin.

A prince travelling through the
land sees Snow White. He strides to her coffin and, enchanted by her beauty,
instantly falls in love with her. The dwarfs succumb to his entreaties to let
him have the coffin, and as his servants carry the coffin away, they stumble on
some roots. The tremor caused by the stumbling causes the piece of poisoned
apple to dislodge from Snow White's throat, awakening her. The prince then
declares his love for her, and soon a wedding is planned. The couple invites
every queen and king to come to the wedding party, including Snow White's
stepmother. Meanwhile, the queen, still believing that Snow White is dead,
again asks her magic mirror who is the fairest in the land. The mirror says:
‘You, my Queen, are fair so true. But the young queen is a thousand times
fairer than you.’

The stepmother queen reluctantly accepts
the invitation to attend the wedding. Why? Well, call it fate, karma or
destiny. We cannot escape our destiny. A pair of glowing-hot iron shoes are
brought forth with tongs and are placed before the queen. She is forced to step
into the burning shoes and to dance until she drops dead.

Well, what are we to make of all
this? I have already given you a few clues above. Remember, this is my take on
the fairy tale.

The story begins with the old
queen who has a vision of a beautiful, joyous human being. Such a person will
have overcome their bondage to self. He or she is enlightened, so to speak. Of
course, we don’t become such a person overnight, and the path to becoming a
fully functioning human being is fraught with difficulties. Inside each of us
are hundreds of little, false selves in the form of our many likes, dislikes, opinions,
beliefs, attachments and aversions. The process of dis-identifying with self is
never easy. The new queen appears. Unfortunately, she is very vain and proud,
and she seeks to use selfish powers and wisdom for her own entirely selfish
purposes. As I see it, the new queen represents any one or more of our false
selves which we mistakenly believe are the person
that we are. The seven dwarfs symbolise different aspects or facets of the person each of us is. For example, among
others there’s Happy, and Sleepy, and Bashful, and Dopey. The latter is especially me! Anyhow, take your pick.
One thing to remember. These ‘dwarfs’ are very
important and they can help you and me. They are all facets of the spiritually developing
person.

The spiritually developing person
Snow White, like you and me, is attacked in various ways. Of course, our worst
enemy is ourselves—that is, our ‘selves’. The task for each one of us is to
overcome the bondage of self. Ultimately, as I’ve said over and over again, we
need a power-not-ourselves (that is, a power-not-our-false-selves’) to be
relieved of the bondage to self. In the fairy story of Snow White and the seven
Dwarfs that power comes in the form of the prince.

The stepmother queen is a graphic representation
of all our inner demons—our unruly passions, hates, aversions and attachments.
Our ego-self, if you like. It is a
paradox of immense proportions that, for something which has no separate, independent
existential reality of its own, the ego-self causes us so much damn trouble?
Why? Because we let it.

The ego-self has to be thrown off-centre, and if we
wish to be truly happy we must give up all things that stand in the way of our
spiritual development—things like bad habits, obsessions, addictions, hatreds
and resentments. In fact, all forms of self-obsession. Norman Vincent Peale (pictured left), who
for 32 years was the senior minister of Marble
Collegiate Church in New York City, wrote in his book Sin, Sex and Self-Control (Doubleday,
1966) that each of us must experience ‘a shift in emphasis from self to
non-self’. However, there’s a problem. Self cannot overcome the problem of
self. The ‘self that tries to overcome self’ is just one more self, having no
power in and of itself. In my many blogs and other writings I have quoted often
these immortal words of William
Temple, a former Archbishop of
Canterbury:‘For the trouble is that we are self-centred, and
no effort of the self can remove the self from the centre of its own
endeavour.’ What this means is that each of us needs to find a power-not-our-false-selves
to overcome the problem of self and bondage to self. In one of his memorable
so-called ‘Zen sayings’ Jesus said that we must lose our ‘selves’ in order to find
ourselves (cf Mk 8:35). So true.

Snow White—the real person
each one of us is—wanders from the path that leads to being a fully functioning
human being. The illusory power of our false selves can and does cause that to
happen. Eventually, she comes to see the false as false and the real as real.
The prince opens her eyes to what is real. Experience, and trial and error, can
do that. So, can mindfulness, that is, living with choiceless awareness of what
is.

When we practise mindfulness, we learn, bit by bit, to
dis-identify with our false selves. It may be our angry self, our resentful
self or our frightened self. We learn to give those selves no power. They are
not the person that we are. They are images in our mind which we have created
over time. Yes, they are quite persistent and, if we allow them to dominate and
take over, they can almost come to define the person that we are. However, they
are never, never, never in truth the person that we are. You and I are persons
among persons. Live as such. Overcome the bondage to self. No effort of the
self can do that, but you, the person
that you are, is power-other-than-self. Only the latter is real.

I will finish with these words from G K Chesterton. In his book Orthodoxy,
in the chapter titled ‘The Maniac’, Chesterton wrote, ‘How much larger your
life would be if your self could become smaller in it … .' Indeed.

Sunday, January 1, 2017

A New Year begins. It’s a time for taking charge of one’s
life and for giving up the old and embracing the new.

It is
said that we are born free. Well, never entirely free. You see, part of the price we pay for Spirit (pure Be-ing) descending into matter, for the Word
becoming flesh, so to speak, is that we invariably find ourselves caught up,
indeed trapped, in a time-bound, self-centred prison which is not entirely of
our own making but which becomes more and more escape-proof as wechoose, hundreds
and thousands of times, to identify with our false sense of ‘self’ in the form of our innumerable likes, dislikes, views, opinions, beliefs, attachments and aversions.

Yet, as
Norman Vincent Pealeonce wrote, ‘There is a spiritual
giant within us, which is always struggling to burst its way out of the prison
we have made for it.’ How I love those words! The words are themselves bursting
with life-changing power. Even if what Peale said werenotthe case, I think those words of
his are nevertheless so powerful that theystillcould move mountains---perhaps even
literally!

Freedom, liberation, this must be
the aim of man. To become free, to be liberated from slavery: this is what a
man ought to strive for when he becomes even a little conscious of his
position. There is nothing else for him, and nothing else is possible so long
as he remains a slave both inwardly and outwardly. But he cannot cease to be a
slave outwardly while he remains a slave inwardly. Therefore in order to become
free, man must gain inner freedom.

The first reason for man's inner
slavery is his ignorance, and above all, his ignorance of himself. Without
self-knowledge, without understanding the working and functions of his machine,
man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and he will always remain a slave,
and the plaything of the forces acting upon him.

This is why in all ancient
teachings the first demand at the beginning of the way to liberation was:‘Know thyself.’

Know
thyself. That hasalwaysbeen the message of the great
teachers, mystics, saints and holy ones. In the words of Dr Peale,
'Self-knowledge leads to a cure. Self-knowledge is the beginning of
self-correction. The first step toward being what you can be is to know what
you are.' Yes, until weknowwe are in bondage -- and until weacknowledgethat fact -- there is really no hope
for us. However, as soon as we admit to ourselves that we are in bondage, that
there is something seriously 'wrong' with and in us, thereishope for us. Further, when we say to
ourselves, ‘I want to be free, more than anything else in the world,’ then our
walk to freedom begins, but we must be prepared to go to any length to get it.

Do you
reallywantto be free? Well, then, ask
yourself this question, ‘Who has bound me?’ No voice answers back -- except
perhaps your own -- and if you are in touch with the reality of your being you
will come to realize that, in truth, you, thepersonthat you are,
have always been free and unlimited.

True,
you may have attached your ‘self’ to all kinds of things and persons -- for it
is a fact that the 'self' always wants opportunities for gratification of
various kinds -- but once you lose theillusion of selfyour mental states will no longer revert to
negativity. Know this: you arenota 'self,' but a person among persons in the
All-in-All of Life. If you have trouble accepting the fact that there is no
'self,' I suspect the reason for that is this---your attachment to 'self'
is very strong. If so, get rid of your 'self.'Dropit---now! You don't need it, and it only
gets in the way of your true Be-ing.

Yes,
thepersonthat you are is part of life’s self-expression,
and the life of you is always free and unlimited. Life, which is forever
engaged in atimeless renewalof itself from one moment to the
next, isneverin bondage or slavery, but we can and
so often do make a veritable prison for ourselves outof
our ‘selves’. Never forget that. But we can still assert our innate spiritual
freedom---atanytime!

Vernon Howard (pictured left) wrote, 'To change what we
get we must change who we are.' We need to start livingfromandinthat centre of life-consciousness
which is the very ground of your being---the verylivingnessof your life---right now! You see,
this ground of your being is nothing less than the individualised,
personalised, condensed totality ofBe-ing itself, and this ‘energy-base’ is
closer to you than breathing and nearer than hands and feet.

Yes,Be-ingindwells, infuses, animates and
expresses all persons and all material creation – indeed,alllife! Nothing, absolutely nothing,
exists which is outside the orbit and presence of pure Be-ing, and you are at
all times immersed, indeed saturated, in that Be-ing -- that All-in-All -- as It
forever lives out Its livingnessinandasyou, thepersonthat you are. Once you fully awakento that fact, and startlivingthat fact, you are free. Yes, really!

Those who are free are those who
are not in trouble with themselves. They no longer react mechanically, that is,
from conditioned thought. They live in awareness. They are not obsessed with
the need to be happy. They do not care how others should treat them or behave
toward them. They know that the answer to every problem lies within themselves.Further, they know that, for each of us,
theonlyreal
problem is---ourself, that is, our 'self.'

Doyouwant to be free?Really?How greatly do you want to be free? Are you
prepared to go toanylength to be free?

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